Brain Fertilizer

Is there anything in our society as badly misunderstood as College?

Well, I don't think there is.

US News and World Report gives its annual rating of the top colleges...but isn't there some controversy as to what criteria are involved to result in those rankings? If you have a top-name professor who publishes a great deal, will you really get much benefit from sitting in a class of 100 students being taught by a TA? Honestly, isn't much of the prestige of a school based on subjective criteria?

I think the only way you could truly develop an accurate ranking of the value of a specific college is if you tracked the success of its graduates. So, now we have to define success, and account for disparities in enrollment/graduation numbers...

Too complicated.

Besides, do you really care about what college was like for everyone else? It seems to me the most important thing about college is what you get out of it:

An education.

Too many people go to college just to get a degree. They attend classes, worry about their grades, flirt with people they find attractive, drink and party, work part-time jobs (maybe), attend sporting events, "raise their awareness" (whatever that means...), etc. But do they get an education? If they don't, whose fault is that?

Sometimes I'm surprised we have colleges at all. The professors talk and assign reading, the students attend class, but as a society, we have absolved the students of any responsibility in their own learning. If kids don't learn, it must be bad teachers, or not enough money, or outdated textbooks...

Bull. It's the student.

Granted, teachers can do much to create an environment that helps or hinders students. A great teacher can overcome apathy and inspire students to learn. But can we demand that every teacher be a great teacher?

Granted, parents can attempt to instill their children with a zest for learning, creativity, and imagination. One simple act of reading to a child daily has been shown to contribute a great deal toward the emergence of a person who thinks, considers, reads, weighs, evaluates.

However, we are discussing colleges. When I lay the responsibility at the feet of the student, I'm not moralizing from any lofty height of enlightened success. I've seen both sides of the coin. I've been a lousy student, but somehow lived to tell the tale and mend my ways.

I breezed through high school without a problem. I can't remember ever bringing homework home, because I always finished it during the school day, or before/after/during extra-curricular activity practices. I never studied for tests, literally not once, and still ended up with only 1 B for my entire HS career. I kicked butt on the ACT and entered college with the same lackadaisical attitude. I had achieved much, but valued none of it. I had lots of knowledge, but little understanding. I absorbed facts, but I didn't learn.

Not really valuing my college opportunity, I eventually dropped out.

Later, I learned Chinese. At various intervals I was given opportunities for refresher training. I also re-entered college to get my degree in Chinese. But something inside me had changed. Maybe it was simply that after studying Chinese intensely for 15 months, I was shocked by how much I had forgotten over the course of three months without studying, and I didn't want to lose my Chinese again. Maybe it was just an attitude of responsibility I had picked up in basic training. I'm not sure, because few other people seemed to have the same drive to learn that I did.

In China with a student group, the other 9 people spent every night in bars, hanging out with a Canadian rock band, and dealing with hangovers and lack of sleep each morning in class. I saw the 6-week class as an opportunity not to be squandered, and spent nearly every waking hour in the company of at least one Chinese speaker. Despite having the best ability at the start of the class, I learned far more during the trip than anyone else.

In my other classes, nearly every teacher would pull me aside once and apologize for teaching beneath my level because of my classmates. I would truthfully tell them I hadn't even noticed, and not to worry, because there is always something to learn. Perhaps the rest of the class was studying new vocabulary...I would practice pronunciation, fluidity, and grammar. What is taught is not always what is learned...in my case, I felt I could sit in on an elementary class and learn something.

That attitude started bleeding over into other classes. In a history class, I was asking probing questions before the final test. One of the other students approached me at the break and said, "Why are you still asking questions? You have a 99% in the class, you could fail the final test and still get an 'A'!" My only response, my only possible response, was that I wasn't in the class to get an 'A'. I'm not sure he understood.

At this point, I'm beginning to believe that it doesn't matter which school you attend, the important aspect to education is reading/hearing differing viewpoints, considering all the arguments, making a decision for yourself which possible theory is true, and then defending your judgment to someone whose knowledge of the subject should be broader than yours.

One top-notch professor told me that a PhD is nothing more than a license to learn in public. Why wait for the degree? Learn all you can, and treat each college class as an opportunity to encounter thought processes and arguments you haven't met before. You can learn just as much from a teacher who knows less than you as from one who knows more. You can learn just as much from a teacher less intelligent as one more intelligent than yourself.

Perhaps I place the burden of every circumstance on the shoulders of the individual too often. Nevertheless, the single most important aspect in your education is you. Especially in college, and increasingly as you move higher in the education system, learning begins and ends with you.